New Jersey Halts Admissions for Troubled Group-Home Company

A series of surprise investigations at Bellwether homes conducted by New Jersey’s Division of Developmental Disabilities uncovered evidence of abuse and falsification of records

Credit: WNYC News/Audrey Quinn

In August 2012, the Saccoh family thought they’d finally found a good home for the youngest of the family’s eight adult siblings, near their home in Trenton.

Abdulaye, then twenty, is autistic and intellectually disabled. A quick-to-laugh computer whiz and Special Olympics track star, he’d spent two years at the North Jersey Developmental Center after he started having behavioral issues at the age of 18.

The family was eager to move him out of an institutional setting when Bellwether Behavioral Health approached them and offered Abdulaye a new placement.